DALLAS -- Alon Brands is adopting a mobile app from Zenput, a leader in mobile operations management for retail, convenience stores and restaurants.
The largest 7-Eleven franchisee in the United States, Alon Brands will deploy a platform to automatically assign tasks and centralize auditing functions for more than 400 users across its 300 convenience stores in Texas and New Mexico.
Zenput will replace manual processes in Alon stores, where managers have previously relied on spreadsheets, emails and paperwork to conduct operational and retail merchandising audits. By automatically routing exceptions on retail execution, verifying in-store campaigns and managing other tasks, Zenput will let Alon Brands increase its speed of response to in-store needs to match the fast pace of the c-store market and help grow its revenues.
Large c-store chains and franchise owners have long faced a challenge in keeping stores stocked and brand promotions up to date without overwhelming managers with manual processes or struggling to maintain oversight of locations that might be hundreds of miles away from company headquarters. In a fast-paced market where popular inventory moves off the shelves quickly and timely brand promotions can significantly affect sales, Zenput’s mobile app gives companies like Alon Brands the means to flatten their organizations and reduce the time and labor involved in cross-company task management from weeks to just hours.
“We’re looking closely at how to use technology to increase the speed of execution at our stores, and we knew we needed a mobile-driven task management tool that could scale to accommodate an enterprise of our size,” said Jonathan Ketchum, senior vice president of retail at Alon Brands. “Zenput gives us the speed of response we needed. Now we can centralize our auditing functions and quickly see which stores are on target for a wide variety of tasks.”
The Zenput platform now also enables c-store chains, other retailers, restaurants and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to streamline task assignments and workforce project management. Customers can track campaign completion across hundreds of locations and auto-generate new tasks, all to support the goals of providing consistent customer experiences and driving revenue.
“Convenience-store chains and large franchisees see the ROI that comes with mobile platforms, and there is a drive underway in this market to adopt this technology,” said Vladik Rikhter, CEO and co-founder of Zenput. “By putting Zenput into the hands of its store managers, Alon Brands is ensuring it will not only increase its response time, but also uncover revenue opportunities to grow its business and maintain advantage in a competitive market.”
San Francisco-based Zenput provides mobile operations management and real-time analysis to companies, centralizing daily operations and human task management for distributed workers.
Based in Dallas, ALON Brands markets ALON motor fuel products at more than 800 convenience stores.
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